101 — Intentional Camera Movement — Interview with Michael Orton

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #101 fea­tures an inter­view with one of my favorite pho­tog­ra­phers, fine art pho­tog­ra­pher Michael Orton. In this pod­cast we talk about delib­er­ately mov­ing your cam­era dur­ing the expo­sure. Nor­mally, this is FORBIDDEN and you do every­thing in your power to keep the cam­era as still as pos­si­ble while shoot­ing. But Michael has a very unique way of see­ing and has again bro­ken the rules. He has cre­ated a unique and fab­u­lous new port­fo­lio of one-of-a-kind abstract land­scape images, by way of inten­tional cam­era move­ment. This pod­cast dis­cusses inten­tional cam­era move­ments for cre­ative effect.

Michael Orton is a fine art pho­tog­ra­phy pio­neer. First he cre­ated Orton Imagery, AKA the Orton effect some 30ish years ago. This tech­nique has been used by tens of thou­sands of pho­tog­ra­phers and has become so pop­u­lar that Adobe Ele­ments 10 now fea­tures an action called the Orton Effect. I’d bet hard that Michael’s tech­nique involv­ing com­pound cam­era move­ments also devel­ops a cult-like fol­low­ing in the years to come. Thanks so much Michael!

Awak­en­ing by Michael Orton — The abstract painterly feel to this image was cre­ated INCAMERA by using Inten­tional cam­era movement.

Thanks to Patrick, Bambi and Glenn Euloth who posted blog com­ments about our last pod­cast. Thanks as always to every­one that sent com­ments by email about our last pod­cast. Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Thanks as well to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board. Most of the links to actual the prod­ucts are affil­i­ate links that help sup­port this site. Thanks in advance if you pur­chase through those links.

Comments

I was look­ing to see if i’m doing what’s been done. While cam­era Motion can have a blending/mixing of colours, I’m con­cerned after read­ing http://www.photography.ca/fine-art-photographers/orton/ that col­ors found in RAW that were not notice­able, look­ing in the camera/looking through the cam­era were redis­trib­uted in the image, yet applied to dra­matic affect.-Ernie Moore Jr.

I’m try­ing to dis­cern which of the selec­tions were cam­era motion. When I select them the color might seem off, or not valid/true in that position–trying to see the meat from the gris­tle. If there’s Orton effect done by Orton him­self I sup­pose it is merely his style. But when you get your style from a Photo Shop (includ­ing layering)-one has left pho­tog­ra­phy and entered Gaphic Art.-Ernie Moore Jr.

As peo­ple work­ing with what’s avail­able, much suc­cess to the Ortons with their Graphic Arts work(s). I hope to some­day see the non-composite layer, Com­pos­ite Inten­tional Cam­era Motion Imagery untouched(-up) nor what’s there reap­plied; to see how the pho­toim­ages com­pared to my han­dling of cam­era motion.-Ernie Moore Jr.

The lack of pom­pus­ness was nice. Mr. Orton seems a per­son who’s found joy in the experiences-what was old can be looked at again to be new and reappreciated.-Ernie Moore Jr.

really really good lis­ten­ing to this podcast…I tried OCCM indoors n it sucks, hop ill improve soon…will try more ofcourse. Head­ing to a beau­ti­ful place for hon­ey­moon in 2 months and I hope to do jus­tice with some pics with this technique…

Hey Marko! It’s my first time com­ment­ing on your site, but I am a long time lis­tener to your pod­cast. Just wanted to say thanks for your inter­view with Michael Orton. I am com­pletely smit­ten with his cam­era move­ment work. I actu­ally took an “acci­den­tal” photo last year that I liked. I was going to an upstairs win­dow to take a pic­ture of a beau­ti­ful sun­set. On my way up, I acci­den­tally pressed the shut­ter release. The shut­ter speed was set on 1 sec­ond (from the prev. night when I was doing some night pho­tog­ra­phy.) I got a shot that turned out pretty cool. I never thought of doing it on pur­pose! I’m def­i­nitely going to exper­i­ment with this!

Also, I have to agree with Math­ias, you have a really unique, pleas­ant to lis­ten to voice. As I believe I men­tioned when I found you on G+, you always seem so happy & excited to talk pho­tog­ra­phy, it makes for a very enjoy­able lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence! Thanks!

I sub­scribe to a num­ber of photo pod­casts (Tips from the Top Floor, a few german-language ones, Pho­toNet­Cast and the Pro Pho­tog­ra­phy Show) and I’ve got to say the scope, depth and length of the indi­vid­ual episodes is per­fect for my atten­tion span and interest!

Love how you’ve picked a (to me) totally new per­spec­tive on how to take pic­tures of land­scapes this time. And the fact that you’ve also made it rather hands-on and applicable.

I also need to say that you have a gen­uinely inter­est­ing vocal range that isn’t tir­ing to lis­ten to at all. Okay, that may be a weird way to pro­vide pos­i­tive feed­back, but I find a good many pod­casts go a long way toward the vocal equiv­a­lent of fin­ger­nails screech­ing over a black­board. Yours doesn’t.

So thank you for all that, please keep it up.

Greet­ings from Ger­many (land of the plain-spoken feed­back),
Mathias

Great pod­cast! Michael Orton’s images are gor­geous. Years ago I did a gen­eral pho­tog­ra­phy course Shai Ginott (www.shaiginott.com). She does sim­i­lar work but wouldn’t tell us how she used cam­era move­ment to cre­ate abstract land­scapes. Now I’m feel­ing really inspired!